Putin's inner circle: which allies have been sanctioned and what is the relationship with the Kremlin?

Vladimir Putin's circle has changed. Many of its most loyal allies do not were aware of the president's plans to invade Ukraine, nor were they ready for sanctions. Several Russian sources told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica di Kiev: “For many years, those who have built fame and empire at home, or who have cultivated a sweet life abroad among Western villages and huge hidden accounts, today they see their castle collapse like sand. Western sanctions.”

According to reports from US and European intelligence officials, as Putin stepped up the war, the president became increasingly isolated. It seems that businessmen and politicians who once belonged to Putin's inner circle now do not want or cannot pressure him to change course.

More and more advisers and former devotees, including industrialist Oleg Deripaska and billionaire banker Mikhail Fridman, are now expected to raise their voices.

The Washington Post has managed to identify some key players in a vast network of political and economic elites that surround Russian leaders. Many of these people have been sanctioned by the United States, the United Kingdom, or the European Union, while others are out of the restrictions.

In the Russian context, oligarchs are very wealthy business elites with unbalanced political power. They appeared in two distinct waves.

The first group came from the privatization of the 1990s, especially from the cash sales of the largest state-owned enterprises since 1995. This process has been undermined by severe corruption, culminating in the infamous 'equity lending' scheme. The scheme transferred shares of 12 large natural resources companies from the government to select tycoons in exchange for loans to strengthen the federal budget.

The government deliberately defaulted loans, allowing creditors, future oligarchs to auction off giant stocks.

After Putin came to power in 2000, he promoted the second wave of oligarchy through state contracts. Private providers in many sectors, such as infrastructure, defense, and healthcare, will overburden the government at a price many times higher than the market price, offering bribes to relevant state officials. Thus, Putin has enriched the new oligarchs who owe huge fortunes.

In essence, Putin proposed a deal. The oligarchs will get out of politics, and the Kremlin will stop doing business and often leave illegal interests alone.

The oligarchs helped Putin stay in power through political stillness and financial support for the Kremlin's internal initiatives. These people have huge stakes in industries such as metallurgy, banking, technology, petrochemicals, and luxury real estate.

According to media reports, government statements, leaked financials, and in some cases, interviews with men, many were old friends or partners of the president, including Arkady Rotenberg , Putin's childhood friend and former judo partner.

In the English Premier League, some such as Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, have long denied direct financial relations with Putin. In the case of Abramovich, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said last week that “clear evidence” had appeared linking Abramovich to Putin's regime.

However, others, like Petr Aven, recognized her relationship with Putin. In an interview with the US UU, Robert S. Muller III, who investigated Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election, said he was one of the 50 wealthy Russian businessmen who they regularly met Putin. However, he and his business partner Mikhail Fridman (Mikhail Fridman) in a statement earlier this month “lies on the imposition of EU sanctions Become and will challenge unfounded grounds.”

In Russia, most of the media is controlled directly or indirectly by the state or entities linked to President Putin. The few remaining independent media outlets face many restrictions in their work, many of which are classified as 'foreign agents'.

Today, words like “war”, “Ukrainian army” or “aggression” are not available in the media under the threat of blocking the web and economic fines. Audiovisual media does not broadcast images of the Russian hospital during the pandemic, so it does not broadcast images of Ukraine. This invasion slanders part of Ukraine and was presented as a “military operation” to protect the Russian-speaking population from “genocide”. However, a number of Russian journalists were at war. I was against it. They encouraged a statement of condemnation and condemned the cultural, economic and social depravity that the conflict would entail in Russia.

Disinformation is an ancient technique that is used systematically in armed conflicts. Russia has developed a great cybernetic capacity to generate fraud and misinformation abroad, known as “Internet research institutes” and RT and Sputnik media, etc. trolls act on social networks, generating many confusing narratives, creating doubts and confusing facts and opinions.The main goal of these operations is to build and spread claims in favor of the Russian government and foreign policy.

In order to avoid misinformation and the toxic content they generate, the EU said last month that it had targeted large numbers of media figures to impose sanctions and announced restrictions that everyone listed in the official journal has used the Russian platform to support “actions or policies” that undermine or threaten territorial integrity, sovereignty, and Ukrainian Independence

This includes editors, writers, journalists, and talk show organizers from the most important television networks in the United States. All of them are described as the spread of anti-Ukrainian propaganda by the EU.

Critics from Russia said that sanctioning energy exports would be the best way to force Moscow to withdraw.

Russia is an energy-rich country with the world's largest gas reserves. Europe relies heavily on energy imported from Russia, the world's second largest exporter of crude oil after Saudi Arabia. Exports of oil and natural gas are essential to the Kremlin economy, but it is also one of Putin's most important geopolitical weapons.

The United States has banned all energy imports from Russia, including oil. Germany has also stated that it will suspend the approval of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. However, as Western leaders are wary of measures that could harm their consumers, these products mostly did not spare the penalties. After the invasion of Russia, oil prices have already risen.

The state-owned oil company Rosneft is one of the largest listed oil companies in the world, and its CEO and president, Igor Sechin, has contributed long and loyal to Putin. Nikolai Tokarev, the leading Russian intelligence general, who worked with Putin in the 1980s, is now the president of Transneft, a state-owned corporation that carries most of the oil mined in Russia.

Putin's cabinet includes Defense Minister, hunting and fishing buddy Sergei Shoigu, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. The US and the EU have aimed sanctions on both men in recent weeks. Both men have not publicly commented on the sanctions.

However, according to Russian investigative journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, the Shoigu politician, who had no combat experience, said that he was “one of the most ambitious members of the circle Putin's internal.” He received Putin from his home in the mountains of Siberia, and local media reports collected by the Post describe him as a “close ally” and “friend” of the president.

However, according to Lieutenant General Scott D. Berrier, Director of the Defense Intelligence Service, Ukraine's fierce resistance to aggression caused the loss of up to 4,000 Russian soldiers.

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin (Sergei Sobyanin) are not necessarily key advisors at the moment, but are responsible for implementing the Putin's domestic policy. That's why Switzerland and the EU turned to Mishustin for sanctions, and Canada included Sobyanin on the list.

Putin is a former intelligence officer, so he trusts military and security officials more, experts say. Some of them have been around for many years, from Chechnya to Syria to Crimea.

Among the most prominent ones listed in the Washington Post are the head of the Federal Security Service, Alexander Bortnikov, Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, and Sergei Naryshkin, head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin. Valery Gerasimov acts as Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and is partially responsible for the war plan.

According to US and European intelligence officials, Putin's close advisers may not be telling the truth about how difficult and costly war is. It is also not known who is making a decision thatthe truth is that for three weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, despite the presence of advanced aviation, it has not yet managed to take control of the Ukrainian skies and suffered huge military losses.

Infographic: Marcelo Regalado

(Include informazioni da AP)

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